RENTON Cortez Kennedy Color Rush Jersey , Wash. (AP)Pete Carroll insisted again that he’s not going anywhere. He’s intent on remaining the leader of the Seattle Seahawks even if it means many of the faces he spoke to this week while closing out the 2017 season are gone by the time Carroll finally gets to coach his team again. ”I’m pumped up about it. I’m excited about that challenge,” Carroll said Tuesday. ”I’m upset that we have to face it this early. I’d like another six weeks here, that would be nice. But that’s not what this one is. We got to go after it. Nothing’s going to change other than maybe our resolve.” For just the second time in his eight years in Seattle, Carroll spent Tuesday explaining why the Seahawks were not in the postseason. It’s the first playoff miss for Seattle since the 2011 season and with the rapid rise of division foe Los Angeles indicated – at least for one year – a significant change in the hierarchy of the NFC West. Injuries played a major role in Seattle’s slide to 9-7. So, too, did inconsistency on offense, continued problems with penalties and salary cap constraints that limited adjustments the Seahawks could make during the season. It’s likely to be a busy offseason as Seattle attempts to manage its tight cap situation while making key decisions about how to move forward and if it still is a championship contender needing slight tweaks or a major overhaul. ”I think there is a championship team sitting in this meeting room right here,” Carroll said. Here are some of the issues to know about Seattle’s 2017 season and going into next year: REDISCOVER THE RUN: Perhaps nothing irritated Carroll more, or had a great impact on the efficiency of the offense, than Seattle’s inability to run. It’s been a staple of Carroll’s program from the day he arrived in Seattle. This year the Seahawks had one rushing touchdown by a running back. Quarterback Russell Wilson was the leading rusher with 586 yards, 346 more than any other player. Seattle had hopes for promising rookie Chris Carson, but he was sidelined by an ankle injury early in the season and never made it back. The lack of a running game affected Wilson as a passer as well, as defenses didn’t have to commit an extra safety to stopping the run, leading to smaller throwing windows and some tentative decisions by Wilson. ”There are tremendous examples of teams around the league that have turned their fortunes around with a formula that should sound familiar to you: teams running the football, playing good defense and doing the kicking game thing,” Carroll said. INJURY CONCERNS: Carroll wouldn’t get into specifics, but there is a chance Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor have played their final games. Avril and Chancellor suffered neck injuries during the season. Carroll said on the radio Tuesday that both would have a ”hard time” playing football again. A couple of hours later, he softened his stance, saying each have quality-of-life decisions to address with their football future. ”Both those guys are marvelous people and competitors and all that. We’d love to see them through the rest of their career. I don’t know what’s going to happen there,” Carroll said. LEGION OF WHOM: If Chancellor does not return Shaun Alexander Color Rush Jersey , it could be the start of a major makeover for Seattle’s secondary. Richard Sherman is coming off a torn Achilles tendon and was openly shopped by Seattle last offseason. Earl Thomas is entering the last year of his contract and his actions toward the end of the season indicated a desire to be elsewhere for the 2018 season. A big key will be if Seattle can re-sign versatile safety Bradley McDougald after he played both free and strong safety this season. HOME-FIELD AVERAGE: Seattle went 4-4 at home, its first .500 record at CenturyLink Field since 2011. The Seahawks have always thrived at home, but some of their uglier performances this year came in front of their own fans. OFF THE FIELD: Seattle was among the most active teams in the league with a significant number of players participating in national anthem protests. The protests, on top of the incident Michael Bennett had with police in Las Vegas in August, created a number of unexpected issues. Carroll said he believed that only once this season – Seattle’s loss at Tennessee – did discussions of off-field issues affect the team’s performance. Seattle had long discussions following comments by President Donald Trump about NFL players and opted to remain in the locker room as a team during the anthem before that game. ”That was an extraordinarily heated time,” Carroll said. ”I think that was a different amount of emotional output that occurred before the game and it looked like it the way we played.” — The Seattle Seahawks must trade down in the 2019 NFL Draft. Multiple times. Taking a player with the 21st pick of the draft would ignore the fact that a needy Seattle only have four picks: Round 1 Pick 21; Round 3 Pick 84; Round 4 Pick 116; and Round 5 Pick 148. Multiple trade backs will happen, ignoring that it’s now a customary first-round trade down from John Schneider anyway.Teams will be aware the Seahawks are wanting to trade down. They’re a regular “trade down” franchise and this year it’s even more obvious. At events like the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine, where all the big personnel influencers are present, the Seahawks will have put out the “we are trading down” feelers. There isn’t some manic 10-minute period of draft-day scrambling to find a trade partner. Teams know.Let’s look at five possible trade down scenarios for Seattle then. Free Agency will influence what teams do, but experience of past drafts and previous trade downs from the Seahawks give us a solid chance of predicting how Seattle will move down in the draft and gain more picks. There will always be “types” open to cooperation (exploitation):1. The quarterback-needyRemember in 2016 when the Seahawks found a trade partner in the Denver Broncos? The Broncos, concerned that the Dallas Cowboys were going to take Paxton Lynch, gave up a third-round pick to move up just five spots from 31 to 26. (Seattle took Germain Ifedi and Nick Vannett with the pair of selections)Lynch is now a Seahawk, evidence of how well Denver’s first-round pick panned out. The desperation of quarterback needy teams to grab their guy, or sometimes any passer at all, must not be underestimated. In 2019 the quarterback class is dreadful. That won’t stop there being a late first-round quarterback taken though. A first-round rookie deal features the added team-friendliness of a fifth-year option, which makes taking a quarterback in the first preferable. It’s not just teams needing an immediate upgrade to their QB1; franchise quarterback successors for the aging Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers will, eventually, be required.The league is likely to be lower on the electric playmaking talents of Kyler Murray. (He’s getting top 10 talk from draftniks) There are numerous, valid concerns surrounding the Heisman Trophy winner. He’s listed at 5ft 8 on Oklahoma’s website. His release is “baseball-style Jarran Reed Color Rush Jersey ,” as Sports Info Solutions scout Bryce Rossler writes. It features “a false pump and an occasional looping motion from the hip which, when combined with his body composition, will result in some batted balls and pass deflections at the pro level.”Murray’s recent interview on the Dan Patrick show was bizarre and made it look like he was treating the NFL as leverage for his baseball career. Murray might be the player teams rush to trade back into the first round for though. Or Daniel Jones and Ryan Finley feel like passers who the league is higher on than #drafttwitter. Quarterbacks provide the Seahawks with the best and most lucrative opportunities.2. The fear of missing outIn the draft, positions have tiers. General Managers will talk about the “shelves” of each positional group. What keeps a GM up at night is the fear of plummeting off the ledge. This is especially true for a position of need. Finding what point a tier ends and avoiding being left out are massive parts of drafting well.A 2019 draft example would be the Mariana Trench-deep tight end group. Despite the plethora of talent, there is a consensus top three tight ends who are above the rest. If a team wants a premium tight end; T.J. Hockenson, Noah Fant and Irv Smith Jr. are the trio that will be taken.3. The positional runA run on a certain position is linked to the above. Terrified of being left out of that “tier”, a certain position will start flying off the board one after the other. If a team has a certain need at a position, they will grow especially terrified of being left out of the rush.Of the last nine picks in the 2015 fourth round, five were interior offensive linemen. (The order: guard, linebacker, guard, center, wide receiver, center, guard, defensive end, cornerback) Seattle took Mark Glowinski in the m锚l茅e. Or teams will look to kick off the next tier. This draft that could be Washington State offensive tackle Andre Dillard, who is receiving late first round consideration. Offensive tackles have hovered around this spot in the past: In 2018 the Patriots started the next level of OTs taking Isaiah Wynn at #23 and the year before Garrett Bolles landed with the Broncos at #20. 4. The sniper Sometimes a team will be concerned that a team above them likes the exact same player—it doesn’t have to be a quarterback. Therefore, they will snipe that player from the team.In 2010, when the Kansas City Chiefs took Eric Berry #5 overall Nick Vannett Color Rush Jersey , many pondered if that was who the Seahawks wanted at #6. As it was, Seattle got Russel Okung and then later Earl Thomas at #14. In 2012, the Seahawks traded down from #43 to #47 with the New York Jets, picking up 5th- and 7th-round selections. Questions were raised. The Philadelphia Eagles took linebacker Mychal Kendricks at #46. At that point in the draft, there were only two linebackers worth taking at that spot. The Seahawks were left with no choice and picked Bobby Wagner at #47. Did they want Kendricks? Whatever the case, it worked out. 2016 resulted in the Houston Texans swapping their #22 pick and sixth-rounder for Washington’s #21 selection. The Texans, aware the Minnesota Vikings at #23 were likely going wide receiver, didn’t want to miss out on Will Fuller. They got Fuller, Washington got Josh Doctson and the Vikings—who could have leapfrogged Houston—settled for Laquon Treadwell. The Eagles were pesky last year, jumping above the Dallas Cowboys to take Dallas Goedert:By moving down, Seattle can facilitate the metaphorical hit.5. The meddling ownerYou know the scene. The NFL Network cameras cut to a Dallas Cowboys war-room. Jerry Jones is desperately clawing for the phone as his draft crush falls. The rest of the Front Office looks anxious as the seconds tick by, hoping Jones heads for a restroom break so they can lock him in the bathroom. The Cowboys managed to stop him from going rogue and taking Johnny Manziel—per Jim Dent.That task was left to the meddling of Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam. According to Seth Wickersham, Haslam wanted Manziel over Teddy Bridgewater after a dodgy handshake from the latter. The Browns were going to take Brandin Cooks. Instead they selected Manziel with their second first-round pick. Owners can get wild. Plenty of opportunitiesCome April 25th, the Seahawks will have plenty of opportunities to move back. They are unlikely to pick in the first round. Honestly, with how deep the 2019 draft is, that’s fine. Individual player value will become clearer after the NFL combine and pro days—combine begins February 26th.Yet little clarity is needed on the immense quality of this class. Its main strengths—the trenches—suits Seattle’s situation perfectly. Now they must capitalize on the trade partner-types.

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